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Francis Fanny (Ajax)

Last pic (at least for now) coming from Deadpool, and this time it features the alleged main villain of the movie: Ajax, portrayed by Ed Skrein. As long as we know, Ajax will be some sort of “dark Deadpool” in the movie, displaying the same abilities and the same look, but still working for Weapon X and hunting down our (anti) hero. The only power Skrein spoke about was the ability “not to feel anything”, from physical pain to human compassion, making him an unstoppable sociopath killer. Waiting to see what will become of Ajax in the movie, let’s see who he is in the comics.

Not much is known of Ajax’s early life, not even his full name: simply known as Francis, he was hired as a security guard and enforcer in the Workshop, a secret laboratory run by Dr. Emrys Killebrew. The Workshop was attached to the Hospice, a structure in which the failed experiments from Weapon X Project were sent: if they misbehaved in the Hospice, the “inpatients” were sent to the Workshop, where they became the guinea pigs for Killebrew’s sadistic experiments; Francis was the doctor’s strong-arm, ready to intervene whenever one of the unwilling guinea pigs attempted rebellion and/or escape. In order to make his employee even more efficient, Killebrew performed some experiments on him as well, and Francis had his nerves removed, so that he could be immune to pain, and had some cybernetic implants that augmented his strength, speed and stamina, and even his intuitive capability (he was meant to be sent on the field as a Weapon X agent himself, but he was deemed to be too sadistic and left in the Workshop as a security guard): being such an opponent, nobody dared to disobey him… nobody but Wade Wilson, one of the new patients in the facility, who constantly mocked him and unnerved him. Eventually, Francis received from Killebrew permission to kill Wade, but he had to do it following the Workshop’s rules: first, he tortured Wade’s only friend, Worm, to the point of making him a vegetable, then he waited for Wilson to kill Worm out of pity… something that was against the rules. When Wade, moved by compassion, killed his friend, Francis intervened, and severely “punished” him for breaking the rules: at the end of the fight, Francis removed Wade Wilson’s heart from his chest. This would have normally put the word “end” to the fight, but it was instead the very event that triggered Wilson’s healing factor: with a new heart, the mercenary was revived, and he attacked Francis again, this time overpowering and apparently killing him with a gun. Again, this was not the end, as Killebrew’s implants had made Francis’ body much stronger than expected… but Deadpool didn’t realize this, and left Francis believing him to be dead. Bad idea.

Francis’ body was recovered by other Weapon X’s operatives, and upon finding out he was still alive, the scientists healed his wounds and uploaded his cybernetic implants, making him even stronger than before. The process had some collateral effect, and Francis lost what little remained of his mental health: now he was a man driven by pure rage, incapable of restraining himself, impossible to control. With a super soldier so unreliable for the field, Weapon X discharged him, but Francis somehow managed to retain all the cybernetic implants he was given. In the following years, he became a mercenary with the codename Ajax, and had a suite of armor built for himself; he even gathered some sort of personal army, extremely well-trained soldiers he employed for the one mission he wanted to accomplish: to find and kill every single Weapon X subject escaped along with Wade Wilson the day he was “killed”. First, Ajax tracked down Siamese twins Steve and Jacques Soto, who now worked as mechanics: he killed them, but he was unable to obtain from them any information on the target he cared the most about, Wade Wilson, now known as the deranged mercenary Deadpool. Then, Ajax tracked down Todd Harris, a cyborg who now worked as a lumberjack: knowing that the Soto brothers were dead, Harris cooperated, and revealed to Ajax the location of the Hellhouse, a safe house for mercenaries that Deadpool often used… but this didn’t prevent Ajax from killing him, of course. The vengeful hunter arrived to Hellhouse, where he found that the owner, Bob “Patch” Stirrat, held a grudge with Deadpool as well: Patch gave him Wilson’s personal file with no objection, thus leading Ajax to the information he required. Ajax learnt that Killebrew, who now lived as a recluse in Switzerland, on the Alps, had been aiding Deadpool providing him tech: he found his former boss, and tortured him to force him to use the frequency of Deadpool’s teleportation device to bring the mercenary there. Fear and pain did the rest, and Killebrew obeyed to Ajax: Deadpool was teleported in the scientist’s shelter, and Ajax immediately attacked him, throwing his hated enemy down a cliff. The final battle between them had finally begun.

Francis is a cruel and sadistic man, who takes pleasure from others’ suffering, especially if he’s the one who delivers it. Anti-social and violent, he’s, simply put, evil: a man made for war, unable to live any relationship apart from the ones with his enemies. As Ajax, he cannot feel any pain, and he’s extremely well-trained in armed and unarmed combat; his cybernetic implants grant him superhuman strength, speed, stamina and durability. After his “resurrection”, his powers increased dramatically, to the point that he’s able to cause fire simply by rubbing his hands together; his armor contains a number of sophisticated weapons, such as his trademark sonic micro bombs, and he also carries a massive shield nearly indestructible, and heavily armed as well. Deranged, vengeful, unstoppable, Ajax will never rest until he can obtain his revenge against the one man who defeated him: Deadpool.

[…] which he became the test subject of the cruel Doctor Emrys Killebrew and his sadistic assistant Ajax. Killewbrew and Ajax tortured Wilson physically and mentally, leaving on his body gruesome scars […]